Trump takes 32-25 lead in New Hampshire after midnight voting

As the world waits with bated breath for the results of Tuesday's contentious presidential election, its eyes turned briefly to three sleepy hamlets in rural New Hampshire, as their residents — fewer than 100 total — became the first in the nation to cast their ballots.

Author:
WUSA Staff

Published:
7:31 AM EST November 8, 2016

Updated:
9:45 AM EST November 8, 2016

As the world waits with bated breath for the results of Tuesday's contentious presidential election, its eyes turned briefly to three sleepy hamlets in rural New Hampshire, as their residents — fewer than 100 total — became the first in the nation to cast their ballots.

In Dixville Notch, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump 4-2. Libertarian Gary Johnson received one vote, and the 2012 Republican candidate, Mitt Romney received a surprise write-in ballot. In the slightly larger burg of Hart's Location, Clinton won with 17 votes to Trump's 14. Johnson got three votes, while write-ins Bernie Sanders and John Kasich each got one. And in Millsfield, Trump won decisively, 16-4, with one write-in for Bernie Sanders.

So, in the three New Hampshire towns with midnight voting, Trump came out ahead 32-25.

According to New Hampshire law, communities with under 100 voters can open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots.

The best known of these three towns, Dixville Notch, has been voting at midnight every election since 1960. Neil Tillotson, the former owner of the Balsams Grant Resort Hotel, which closed in 2011, started midnight voting in Dixville in 1960 to stir up publicity for the resort. Almost all of the Dixville voters are employees of the resort .

This could be Dixville's last year in the election spotlight, however. Les Otten, a New England businessman, bought the Balsams and plans to redevelop it into a massive ski resort. That could bring the population in Dixville over 100 people, thereby ending its midnight voting tradition.

Hart's Location was the first town to begin the tradition of early voting in 1948. According to the town's website, it started when the town was "inhabited mostly by Maine Central Railroad workers and their families" and early voting became the most convenient way for them to vote. But midnight voting was abandoned in 1964, "when residents became tired of all the media ruckus and voted to end it."

Hart's Location revived the practice in 1996. The town website blames the 32-year lull in midnight voting as the reason Dixville Notch gets all the attention, even though Dixville began the practice more than a decade later than Hart's Location.

Millsfield, located just over 12 miles down the road from Dixville Notch, is the newest town to get in on the act. Millsfield began midnight voting as early as 1952 (no one seems certain exactly when) and stopped the practice in the 1960s (again, no one seems certain exactly when). The town was invited to take the tradition back up last year by New Hampshire's secretary of State, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the New Hampshire primary.

“It’s important for us to revisit history that has been forgotten by most people,” Wayne Urso, the Millsfield election official who is spearheading the midnight vote told Medill News Service.

Don't read too much into the results from these towns. They lean conservative and tend to vote Republican, and obviously represent an extremely small sample. Dixville voted for the Republican in every election since 1960 — including Barry Goldwater who lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson — until going for Obama in 2008, and splitting the vote between Romney and Obama in 2012.

Since reviving midnight voting, Hart's Location voted for Dole in 1996, Bush in 2000 and 2004, and, like Dixville, broke with tradition to vote for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Dixville had a better track record in the GOP primary and predicted every Republican nominee since 1968 (counting ties in 1980 and 2012), but that streak came to a crashing halt when John Kasich edged out the future nominee, Donald Trump 3-2.

PHOTOS: Election Day in America 2016

PHOTOS: Election Day in America 2016

A woman smiles after voting at a polling place at a high school in Burke, Virginia during the US presidential election on November 8, 2016.

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A woman smiles after voting at a polling place at a high school in Burke, Virginia during the US presidential election on November 8, 2016.